''Studio Wrestling'' was a live

professional wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to Real life, real- ...

show broadcast from WIIC-TV Channel 11 in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

every Saturday evening. In 1959, WIIC began broadcasting professional wrestling from their studio located in Fineview. The show was hosted by Bill Cardille through most of its run, although he was not the original host. The primary directors were Chuck Moyer and Jack Bleriot.

Popularity

At one time, this show was considered one of the top wrestling shows in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Even though the show started on Saturdays at 6 p.m., the lines started to form around the TV station at noon. The show was so popular that it revived the dying Pittsburgh wrestling market. Promoter Joseph "Toots" Mondt went from promoting shows at a tiny North Side venue called "The Islam Grotto" to packing in tens of thousands of fans to outdoor shows at Forbes Field. In 1961, Mondt began using the newly built Pittsburgh Civic Arena to run indoor shows on a monthly basis. Even the referees such as Paddy Grimes, Izzy Moidel (who claimed to have once beat Rocky Marciano in an amateur boxing match), and Andy DePaul became local celebrities because of the show's huge audience. An elderly lady named Anna Buckalew, popularly known as Ringside Rosie, who always sat in the front row every Saturday, became well known.

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central ...

Hall of Famer Pie Traynor later became part of the show as a commercial spokesman for the American Heating Company. His tag line was, "Who can? Ameri-CAN!!!"

Cancellation

The show lasted until

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...

. WIIC-TV's new GM David Chase did not think pro wrestling helped the station's image as a news source. He decided to cancel the show, which had once been the station's top rated show. The ratings had declined because wrestling had lost popularity in Pittsburgh, with some Civic Arena shows drawing fewer than 3,000 fans. The fact that Bruno Sammartino was no longer champion and was wrestling on a more limited schedule had a lot to do with this decline. A time change to a 4:30 start also caused some audience erosion. Around this time the Pittsburgh promotional office, sold by Newton Tattrie (Geeto Mongol) to a Buffalo-based promotion, struggled to remain an independent promotion. ''Studio Wrestling'' switched to WPGH-TV channel 53 with the shows being taped in Erie, Pennsylvania. In 1974, the show went off the air and was replaced by the WWWF's syndicated program. The WWWF (today the WWE) was able to claim Pittsburgh as part of its own since it was part of the

National Wrestling Alliance The National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) is an American professional wrestling professional wrestling promotion, promotion and governing body owned by Billy Corgan and operated by its parent company Lightning One, Inc. Founded in 1948, the NWA be ...

at the time and ''Studio Wrestling'' was independent of the NWA. Because of budget and storage concerns, weekly "reference" tapes from the live show were not saved. WIIC-TV re-used all tapes containing its original programming such as ''Studio Wrestling'' and '' Chiller Theatre''. Videos of these programs are now very rare. The Studio Wrestling theme song was "El Capitan" by John Philip Sousa.

Local wrestlers (appearing on ''Studio Wrestling'')

The list of wrestlers who appeared on the show reads like a who's who of American Pro Wrestling.

Bruno Sammartino Bruno Leopoldo Francesco Sammartino (October 6, 1935 – April 18, 2018) was an Italian-American Professional wrestling, professional wrestler. He is best known for his time with the WWE, World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). Sammartin ...

was undoubtedly the most popular and was able to help the WWWF to claim Pittsburgh as part of its territory as far as the NWA was concerned. Giant Baba wrestled on the show. George Steele (The Animal) got his start on the east coast by appearing on the show. Previously, Steele (real name: William James Meyers) had wrestled in his native Detroit in a mask as "The Student". Killer Joe Abbey, real name Joseph Abbenante (who also wrestled as the masked Red Demon)
Billy Darnell
Jumping Johnny De Fazio
Dominic DeNucci
Frank "Slip Mahoney" Durso
Ace Freeman (real name: Zoltan Friedman)
Fred "The Tiger" Geiger
Frank "Carnegie Cop" Holtz
Bobby "Hurricane" Hunt
Zivko Kovacic
Tony "The Battman" Marino (wore a full Batman outfit taking off his cape when he wrestled)
Chuck Martoni (later became mayor of a Pittsburgh suburb- Swissvale)
Ron Mattucci
Carlos Milano
"Polish" Pat Atlas
Bepo Mongol (real name: Josip Perusovic) ( Nikolai Volkoff)
Geeto Mongol
Ron Romano

(WWWF champ. In Pittsburgh, was announced as simply "World Champ".)
John Valiant (John L. Sullivan) (real name: Thomas Sullivan)
Chet Wallick
Chief White Owl, real name George Dahmer
Larry Zbyszko, real name Larry Whisler
Baron Mikel Scicluna Haystacks Calhoun, real name William Dee Calhoun

External links

Steel Belt Wrestling

Crusher Lisowski interview from the show

Bruno Sammartino interview from the show

{{Pittsburgh sports American professional wrestling television series 1959 American television series debuts 1959 establishments in Pennsylvania 1950s American sports television series 1960s American sports television series 1970s American sports television series 1974 American television series endings 1974 disestablishments in Pennsylvania American live television series Mass media in Pittsburgh Professional wrestling in Pittsburgh Television shows set in Pittsburgh